The GRTU protested today after policemen checked out confectioneries after 9 p.m. yesterday to ensure they were not selling alcohol. The confectioneries were also ordered to close.

In a strongly-worded statement, the GRTU said this was an abuse of power.

It insisted that shop owners should be able to sell all products they were entitled to sell in terms of the licence, and the police should be be involved in this matter. The police, it said, had better things to do than interfere in consumer demands.

It insisted that a legal notice which bans confectioneries from selling alcoholic beverages after 9 p.m. was unfair and meant to favour one group of businesses over another.

Furthermore, the penalties (which include a six-month suspension of trading licence on the first offence) were excessive.

The GRTU insisted that the free market was big enough for competition.

It added that although the government was saying that this restriction existed in the law before, the fact was that this had been a dead letter and consumers had become used to buying their needs from one shop, even in the evenings.

The involvement of the police was therefore a retrograde step and a very serious mistake.

If there was a behaviour problem in Paceville because of alcohol consumption, the police should act against the abusers there, rather than clamp down on retailers all over Malta.